Free Navigation

The past months were exciting times for the LBS and map industry. The announcements of free navigation by Google and Nokia sparked many discussions.
I work for NAVTEQ and certainly have my own, positively excited view on this.
If you struggle with the concept of “free”, I strongly recommend to read Chris Anderson’s book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” or at least read these two articles in Wired about the topic.

But the main reason for this blog post is that I want to share another interesting article I came across.
Kevin Dennehy of GPS World interviewed Mike Dobson who hit some very interesting things that help get a better understanding of the powers at play.

For those of you who don’t have the time to read the full article, here are what I think are the three most interesting sections:

[...] the week following the announcement, there were more than 1 million downloads of the app and data. [...]
[...] the top five countries downloading the new, free version of OVI maps were China, Italy (with the highest number of smart phone users in Europe), UK, Germany and Spain. The number of users of Google’s navigation applications in these same five countries is zero, [...].

Gartner’s recent analysis of the phone market says that Nokia leads the pack with 36.4 percent of the [global phone] market, based on selling nearly 441 million phones in 2009. This is followed by Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson (whose percentage was 4.5). Google’s Android, Apple, and Rim were included in the “others” category, whose members must have had percentages lower than Sony Ericsson, [...].
170 million smart phones were sold in 2009. Categorized by operating system, [Nokia's] Symbian was the leader (46.9 percent market share [81 million units]) followed by Research in Motion [34 million units], iPhone OS (14.4 percent [25 million units]) and Windows Mobile [15 million units] (which led Android Phone sales by almost 9 million units).

Google’s primary interest is not in selling Smartphones, or [...] Android [...]. Google has developed both initiatives as methods of forward integrating into a “distribution channel” that will help them sell geospatially-targeted advertising[...].

I hope you find the article and above quotes as interesting as I did.

In case you wonder what Nokia and NAVTEQ have to offer in terms of geospatially-targeted advertising, please visit NAVTEQ Media Solutions to find out more.

Social Location: Is Google Latitude the GPS Revolution’s Killer App?

There is much talk recently about the GPS Revolution. Just look at the cover of the latest issue of the WIRED magazine. Technology power houses like Google, Microsoft, Nokia, T-Mobile and large social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn are offering location aware features or sharing options. And of course there are services like Brightkite, Yahoo! Fire Eagle or Plazes that are specialized on location sharing. Let’s break down some of the most basic usage scenarios and best practice examples. And let’s take a look at what Google Latitude offers and how it might fit into the bigger picture.

Since mobile phones found their way into the pockets and hand bags of everyday people the often heard questions when taking a call is: “Where are you?” followed by “What do you do?”. These are the things that most social network services revolve around. Up to the minute status messages have created a new neural network among friends, business partners and otherwise connected crowds. Mark Zuckerberg talks about “creating efficiency within society” and I agree.
And while it is good to see that “Melina has chocolate for breakfast”, “Martin is freezing in Chicago”, or “Jeff is returning from a conference in Berlin”, theses posts are of limited relevance when either enough time has passed between when they are posted and when they are read or simply thousands of miles are between poster and reader. Add in proximity filtering and alerting options and posting like the ones above can become a whole lot more relevant and actionable.

WIRED Magazine about the GPS Revolution

I recommend reading the article in the February issue of WIRED Magazine about 10 mobile applications that make use of GPS to offer smart and/or entertaining services. (The article is available online as well. )
This will give you a glimpse of what is on the horizon with GPS-enabled mobile applications as devices gaining more and more adoption by consumers.

The list of 10 is fairly US/Western world centric so I would not be surprised to learn more about applications that support some fairly exotic use cases. If you have interesting examples from the Middle East, Africa or Asia, please post them to the comments!

NowHere, Now what? Locate yourself and friends.

Self localization on non-GPS enabled mobile phones isn’t new. Google Maps Mobile does it, and the the US cell carriers Helio and Sprint have added services like Buddy Beacon or Loopt, which even let you locate your friends. Yet another service has launched in Germany called NowHere. I stumbled across an ad for their service on Facebook today and immediately tried it out.

The Nokia Sports Tracker

As you might heard Nokia is pushing connected location based devices and context aware Internet services. They announced Ovi in August 2007, a portal for consumers to get to and share music, games and maps.Now they have started a beta version of a sports tracking portal that extends their GPS enabled mobile phones. Funny enough, this is not integrated into Ovi but a standalone website for now. But let’s take a closer look.

Location Bookmarking, Can It Extend to a Mobile or Offline Channel?

When visiting a foreign city on your own you probably prepare yourself by checking out a few places in advance, don’t you? You look up where your hotel is, the places you plan to visit (or the office), surrounding restaurants, bars, shopping, ATMs etc.
At least that is what I did when I was traveling on business to Chicago just recently. I’m much more comfortable while traveling when I explore the destination a little bit in advance.

So what I did was bookmarking or “map-marking” a couple of places on an online map.

Minimap Sidebar – A Must Have Firefox Add-on

The Firefox Minimap Sidebar is a handy little thing. It allows you to very quickly locate any address on a map in a sidebar window of your browser.

It’s an easy Firefox add-on install and once the Minimap Sidebar is open, simply highlight an address you found on a website and drag and drop the address from the website into the Minimap Sidebar’s drop box. And voilà, the location is displayed on a Google Map.

It doesn’t stop there though. Addresses are listed in the box for later use. These can then be used for driving directions by selecting them from a drop down. You can also set a home address and start routing to and from there. The choice is yours whether you prefer Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps or Microsoft’s Live Local.
And last but not least you can also share the location by getting its coordinates, a link to the map page, e-mail the link or even get an embed code for your own site – and all that straight from a right-click context menu.
KML and GeoRSS are also supported and of course you can also manually type in an address. Once an address is located you can browse places with Tagzania, Platial, or Loc.alize.us flickr photos.

The Minimap Sidebar is developed by Tony Farndon. Go visit his site at http://firefox.spatialviews.com/ where you’ll find the download link as well.

Is Mobile Local Search Meeting Consumers Expectations?

In the past few weeks I’ve looked at a couple of different local search services. After BMW announced last week that Google Local Search is now available from the latest BMW onboard navigation system it is about time to share some thoughts with you. I also have to admit writing this post has been fueled by a discussion about whether Yellow Pages are of any use these days or just a waste of paper. Even Seth Godin, has posted on his blog about the possibilities and opportunities of putting the “Yellow Pages in your Pocket“
So besides BMW, let’s have a look at two mobile product/shop finders and how to choose a proper pub in Japan.

Can NFC be an alternative to GPS for mobile phones?

NFC, short for Near Field Communication is a technology that enables the communication between devices over a short distance (ca. 0-8 inches), using magnetic field induction. The technology is primarily aimed at usage in mobile phones.

Now why do I think this can be alternative to GPS? Because I’m a dreamer!
So here is what I was thinking:
With NFC you can transfer location coordinates from a transponder to a phone. As it works without the need for satellite reception it is perfect for urban street canyons or indoor use like subways, shopping malls, or conference centers. Yes, because of the short range there is a downside which is the need for tagging street corners or building corridors with transponders. And yes, NFC is still in its infancy. So let’s look at a field test I was able to sneak myself in – and my experiences so far.

NYC Taxis Feature New Technologies

An interesting article found its way into inbox this morning. The article was written by Sean, who is blogging “From the Digital Frontier” on MediaPost.

He was late the other day and took a cab to ride to work. What he encountered when he got in the cab was a small entertainment system displaying news, weather and clips.
How neat, I though … but then I took a closer look at the photo he took of the system’s screen.